


nothing is as it has been

by MiaouMiaou



Series: High Rollers Soulmates AU [1]
Category: Yogscast "High Rollers" D&D Campaign
Genre: Platonic Soulmates, Soulmate AU, it follows the canon to start and then strays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 11:17:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8622505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaouMiaou/pseuds/MiaouMiaou
Summary: Soulmate AU where the first words your soulmate says to you are marked onto your skin in their handwriting.Jiutou has 3 sentences written on her skin, but she doesn't think that her soulmates really exist, and if they do, she doesn't have the time to bother looking for them. She doesn't expect to find them all at once, especially since she wasn't even trying.





	

**Author's Note:**

> wow hi! I noticed the severe lack of high rollers fics and decided to add to the party! (i'm also just a sucker for platonic soulmates)
> 
> i tried my best to stay in character but it's hard and i haven't written these characters before so i'm trying my best
> 
> title is from my favorite song: Rivers and Roads by The Head and the Heart

Jiutou had grown up cynical of the idea that these words on her skin could possibly mean anything. What was the point of having a soul mate, after all, when she knew that love didn’t exist? Her parents had been killed, she had been enslaved and she had gone through hell. Love was stupid, and she would stand by that. She ignored the markings on her skin in the same way that she ignored the scars.

When she had escaped the dragonborn and found her way to the monastery, she found herself wondering again. She had found people who had helped her and who had trained her and who had cared for her in that way, but she never got close to them. She was too afraid. Getting attached to anybody could easily lead to them dying or being taken away, and she couldn’t risk going through the pain again. Not after her parents had died and she had been stolen away from everyone that she knew and loved. The words scrawled on her arm and back and thigh couldn’t possibly mean anything. She had more important things to worry about other than soul mates anyway. She had her training, and then she had to seek revenge.

She did manage to leave, making a plan before heading to Talis’Val, where she knew the dragonborn in red and gold lived. The champion of Arrak, or so he was called. Jiutou knew better than that. She knew he was a slaver and a tyrant and she fully planned to kill him.

Not that she would be saying anything about that on the way to Talis’Val about what she was doing. The caravan driver had asked and she had said her name was Mei Li, and that she was sight-seeing. She was fairly certain that he didn’t believe her, but he had left her alone once she gave him an annoyed look. The caravan had quite a few people on it, as it seemed that Talis’Val was a popular destination, and most kept to themselves. Jiutou sat herself as far away from everyone that she could and she tried her best to ignore the ragtag group of people crowded into the caravan.

Even when they set up camp for the night, Jiutou distanced herself. Tomas, the driver had tried to start up a conversation, but she had just pulled out her bedroll and rolled over so that her back was to him. Her guandao rested under her hand, just in case, but she allowed herself to drift to sleep.

* * *

 

When she awoke, she was in a cold, dark room. It took her a few moments to reorient herself, to let her eyes adjust to the darkness so that she could see the 3 figures in the room alongside her. There was a wall of vines, and she could see the familiar glint of metal that resembled her guandao through them. Her hands were bound, as were the hands of the others in the room. They all started to stir as well.

One man, the human, groaned as he rolled over. “Not again.” He muttered, and though Jiutou had heard this phrase a hundred times before, she still tensed for a moment, as she always had. “This happens every week.” The man groaned, and sat up. Jiutou’s brain froze because surely not. There had to be a mistake. Maybe she hadn’t read the words that rested on the exterior of her thigh correctly. The handwriting, had, after all, been terrible.

“Really?” She said quickly, not even thinking. She hadn’t meant about the context, but rather the phrase itself. But the man seemed to notice her and turned quickly.

“Woah!” He said, stumbling back a bit.

“Oh! Hey.”

“Hey.” The man smiled, and looked around at the other two, who had also sat up. “Woah! Well hello! Nice place to meet you all. I’m Cam. Cam Buckland. I don’t give a fuckland.” Jiutou sighed, not believing that this was something that was happening to her. She didn’t believe much in the soulmate thing, but it wasn’t every day when someone said that sentence. In fact, she had never heard someone say it before in her life, though she had read the sloppy handwriting on her thigh hundreds of times. As much as she wanted to deny it, she knew that it had been that exact phrase. She was soulmates with this idiot of a human. Cam chuckled. “Seems like we’re all in a bit of a predicament.”

“Do humans find that funny?” Jiutou scoffed, and Cam looked over, confused.

“Huh?”

“That thing.” How dense was this man? And surely, he had to know by now as well, right? If they were soulmates, then he had to have her handwriting somewhere, with the first thing she said to her. What had she said though? Or maybe he didn’t, and it was all a bit of an odd coincidence. After all, Jiutou did have three different markings. Maybe she wasn’t meant to have a soulmate at all.

“It usually works.” Cam said. “I’m pretty charismatic. But it’s, uh… not really doing it for you.” The man turned to the other two figures. “Got a pretty stern one over here.” His eyes fell upon the drow man, and Cam startled again. “Woah! Drow, right? That’s pretty cool, man. I love it!” Jiutou rolled her eyes. This man truly was an idiot. “Love the get up! It’s sweet. Can you, uh, like, maybe just bite at my vine things?”

“Can’t.” The drow remarked, looking pretty smug. “Dentist appointment.”

Jiutou’s gaze flew to the drow man immediately and she attempted to reach for her forearm, where those words were scrawled in a neat print. Did she have two soulmates? And they were both here. Which meant that the third probably existed as well. Jiutou gazed nervously towards the last figure in the room. That would be too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?

“Well,” Cam started, “Looks like we’re not attending that today.”

“Guys, guys!” The woman, an elf, said suddenly, after looking around the room. “Don’t go near that! Because, just don’t go over there.” Jiutou’s mind blanked as she pictured the neat cursive scrawled on her lower back, warning her of the same thing. The elf gestured at the wall of vines, and then the vines around her wrist fell off. Cam had managed to cut his own binds on some rocks, just in time to see the elven woman free herself.

“Woah! Are you some sort of druid or something?” The human asked, looking interested.

“Yeah!” The woman chirped. “Hi! Nice to meet you!”

“Hey, Elf.” Jiutou found her voice, trying not to panic. She wasn’t the kind of person to panic about anything, especially something like this. She had been trained for years, she had been a slave before that. She could hide her feelings. They didn’t need to know that she had just found her three soulmates. “Could you do the same thing for me?” She looked down at the vines around her wrist. The woman smiled.

“Sure! Hi! I’m Elora, by the way.” She moved her hands, and then the vines that wrapped around Jiutou’s wrist fell to the floor. “What’s your name?”

“Jiutou.”

“Jiutou.” Elora repeated happily.

Cam, on the other hand, said something that Jiutou assumed was meant to be a butchering of her name. “Could you break that up? Jiu-tow? Jiutou?” Jiutou elected to ignore the man. “Hey!”

The drow, at this moment, seemed to be fumbling with his bounds, and Elora looked over at him for a moment before offering, “Hey, I can do that if you-“

“Yeah, thanks.” The man said, and Elora druid crafted the vines, and they fell to the ground.

“That’s okay.” Elora smiled at him, and then gave the rest of the group a dopey smile, and Jiutou began to suspect that she was experiencing something very similar to what Jiutou was at the moment.

“That’s a pretty useful talent you’ve got there.” Cam noted, and Elora looked over with her grin.

“I like plants.”

“This one’s giving me a pretty bad stink eye.” The human muttered next, tilting his head towards Jiutou.

“I’m ignoring you.” Apparently, this human didn’t pick up on clues.

“What’s the beef?”

“You’re annoying.” And she was currently too preoccupied with the idea that she was soulmates with him to waste her energy.

“C’mon! I’m a nice guy!”

“You’re really talkative and wasteful with your words.” Words that were written on Jiutou’s leg.

“Hey, uh.” Elora seemed to notice the tension. “Not to disturb you, but can we try and get out of here?” She smiled and the group agreed. They got their weapons and Trellimar, the drow, introduced himself. Jiutou found herself nervous around the group. She was supposed to fall in love, or something with them. That was how this worked, wasn’t it? But Jiutou had never fallen in love in her life, and this group was odd and she wasn’t sure what to do about it.

Luckily, she didn’t really have the time to focus on it once they got farther into the dungeon, fighting zombies and the dryad. It was strange, fighting alongside strangers, but Jiutou quickly found that she got comfortable following alongside the group in battle, even if they weren’t the strongest group ever. They had a good awareness of each other, and even when they did stupid things, they got through it.

The battles brought up so many more questions. Especially about Cam. Jiutou thought the human man was insufferable, and he was fairly useless in battle. He also needed to learn to keep his hands to himself, but his hair had glowed when he had touched that tree. And that had been weird. So, there was that to wonder about, but she also had no idea what all of this meant. Surely they weren’t just supposed to leave and go on their own way, right? What if she never saw them again?

It was something that she had never been worried about before- losing her soulmates, but now she had all three of them. They couldn’t be expected just to leave each other, could they? Jiutou quite liked Elora, and Trellimar was mysterious, but he seemed to be good. And he was quiet, and Jiutou could respect that. Even Cam had grown on her, though she would never admit it. It wasn’t love, like they had talked about in the stories and the legends, but it was something.

It was something that Jiutou didn’t want to lose.

* * *

 

When they got out of the dungeon, they set up camp together, the four of them, and they finally had a chance to really talk. They ate and chatted and were actually having a good time.

“So, where are you all headed then?” Elora asked, looking around at the group.

“Talis’Val! I am a performer, as all Bucklands are, and I’m set to perform at the feast of stone.” Cam exclaimed, and then blabbered on about how fantastic he was and how amazing the Bucklands were. Jiutou tuned him out.

“Oh wow, that’s cool! I’m headed there too, actually. I’m on a mission from the Moon Spire.” Elora smiled. “What about you, Trell?”

“I’m going to Talis’Val too. To sight-see.”

“Huh, wow. All going to the same place.” Cam hummed, then quickly turned his head to look at Jiutou. “Unless you’re going somewhere else?”

“No.” Jiutou admitted. “I’m going to Talis’Val too. I have some business to attend to.”

“That’s kind of interesting, you know.” Cam hummed. “I had a bit of a hunch, you see.”

Trellimar raised an eyebrow. “Really now?”

Cam rolled his eyes. “Yes! I’m not sure if this is a thing in all cultures, or if it’s just humans, but do you know of soulmates?” Elora blushed and nodded, and Trell chuckled. Jiutou nodded slowly. “And the markings, right? The first words your soulmate says to you.”

“What are you getting at Buckland?”

“Well it’s not every day that someone says ‘Can’t, dentist appointment’, is it?”

Trell smirked and sat up, interested. Elora looked a bit surprised and looked down at her arm. Jiutou pushed the sleeve of her robes up slightly so she could read the marking that neatly lined her left forearm. Cam pushed his sleeve up and stuck it out towards Trellimar. “So, we’re soulmates, buddy.”

“But I have-” Elora showed her mark as well, the same neat handwriting as the mark on Cam’s arm and on Jiutou’s as well. “I mean, I knew I had three soulmate marks, but I didn’t think that I would have the same soulmate as someone else.”

Jiutou silently offered her arm to the group. Trellimar chuckled and lifted his shirt slightly to show his back, and the neat cursive print that Jiutou had on her back as well. “Guys, don’t go near that.” Elora read, and blushed. “That’s my handwriting.”

“Yes.” Trellimar said, and then looked towards Cam. “I have one on my leg too. A right mess of handwriting. ‘Not again, this happens every week’ it says.” They all met eyes, all of them looking somewhat embarrassed.

“I have that one too.” Elora admitted. “And one more.” She looked up at Jiutou, and Jiutou felt her heart leap into her throat. For a while, she had thought that maybe it wasn’t going to lead back to her as well. She was afraid to have three soulmates but none of them to have her.

“On my shoulder.” Cam said, and Elora nodded quickly, and Trell gave a short nod of agreement. “Sadly, there’s a lot of people who say ‘Really?’ to me when we first meet, so I wasn’t really sure, but it makes sense, doesn’t it, Jiutou?”

“I-” Jiutou took a deep breath and looked at the three of them. The party that had just survived battles and a dungeon together. Who had come out triumphant. Her soulmates. “I have three too. The same ones.” She swallowed. “But I don’t feel that way.” It was true, she didn’t. She didn’t feel like she loved these people. She didn’t feel like she loved anyone the way that soulmates should love each other. Maybe she was just too cynical from her past. Maybe she couldn’t love anyone.

Trellimar was the first to laugh, Cam shortly after him. Elora didn’t laugh, but she did smile. “Maybe Tiefling culture is different.” The drow said. “But being soulmates doesn’t mean anything like that.”

“Or it doesn’t _have_ to.” Elora chimed in. “Soulmates don’t have to be in love. Though it is romantic.” She giggled.

“And sorry to disappoint, Jiutou, but I’m not really interested in uh-”

“Just stop there, human.”

“Right.”

“But did you not know about plantonic soulmates, Jiutou?” Elora asked, and Jiutou looked at her, wondering how to explain that she hardly knew anything about soulmates at all. She knew her parents had been soulmates, and sometimes people talked about it to give them some hope. The monks hadn’t spoke of soulmates hardly ever. It had all been assumptions and gossip that Jiutou had learned from. But soulmates that were just people who were meant to be together? Soulmates that didn’t mean romance? She hadn’t known it was possible.

“No.”

“Oh! Well that’s a thing! It’s even more common than the old fashion romantic soulmate thing. But usually people just have one! I read all about it because I had three! And I knew since we first met, but I really feel like we are soulmates, you know? We all work so well together!” Elora grinned.

“And hey, we’re all headed the same way.” Cam shrugged. “So, what do you say? Stick together, see how it goes? And hey, if something else comes up with the whole soulmate thing, we go with it, right?”

“I’m not sure about the last part, but since we’re all headed to Talis’Val.” Trellimar hummed. “Might as well go together.”

“Then it’s settled! We’ll head out tomorrow.” Cam grinned, and Elora nodded. Jiutou sighed and agreed as well. “Good night then. Good talk.” He removed the Light spell off of his dagger, Duracell, and the cave fell dark.

“Good night!” Elora chimed, giggling slightly. Trell snorted and rolled over.

Jiutou laid still for a moment, taking in the moment and the silent company of her companions. Her soulmates. She sighed and stared up at the ceiling of the cave, and let her hands brush along each of the markings that were written on her skin. She could put voices to the words now, faces to the handwriting. These were the people she was meant to be with. She smiled and closed her eyes. She had found her soulmates. She wasn’t going to be alone any more. She had people. These people, no matter how strange, or obnoxious, or excitable. She had them, and for the first time in many years, she felt like she belonged.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> You can find me over at http://chat-miaou.tumblr.com where i mostly just ramble about high rollers and liveblog
> 
> have a fantastic day!


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